He's never been able to defend, he's never been able to cross, he just got by on good will before his injury as the result of being an attacking full-back and being new to the league. If he'd been established within the squad and put in those performances, people would have been saying "What the fuck is this?"

He put in some decent tackles today, but he also left Twente's left-winger with absolutely acres to run into on numerous occasions; fortunately they didn't exploit it. And how many of his forays forward directly resulted in decent openings? I can't remember any. He's a great athlete but extremely limited technically and a poor reader of the game. I'd much rather see one of Naughton and Walker blooded.

I haven't seen many opportunities for youngsters to come through at White Hart Lane since Harry came in. Bale because Assou-Ekotto was injured, Huddlestone because the only player ahead of him in the pecking order was Jenas... I'd like to see a youngster or two on the bench for each match, whether there are more senior players available or not.

And if first-choice players are injured, I'd like to see young players given their chance straight away, not for them to have to wait for all the reserves to get injured as well. Surely bringing Naughton in to play at right-back, for example, would be of far greater benefit in the long term than the short-term benefit playing Hutton ahead of him provides, if there is indeed any short-term benefit to it at all.

If any of that seems unreasonable, then I'd argue the squad is ill-composed in this regard. Robbie Keane, for example, can't even get in the team at the moment, because he has Crouch, Pavlyuchenko and (when fit) Defoe ahead of him - what chance does that leave for, say, Giovani? Man U had Macheda and Hernandez *both* on their bench today, and one ended up setting up the other to score the winning goal. I can't see anything like that happening at Spurs. And similarly, is it really a good thing that we have Corluka, Kaboul and Hutton all ahead of Naughton and Walker? Or King, Dawson, Bassong, Kaboul and Gallas ahead of Caulker?

Okay, a lot of our youngsters are out on loan at the moment, but what happens when they get back? Is Harry suddenly going to decide that they're better than the players he's been using for the last year or so and stick them straight into the team? Indeed, I think that's an inherent problem of not having a proper reserve team and relying entirely on the loan system to give young players experience, because it means they're not around when potential first-team opportunities arise for them, and if you do keep them around, like we've done with Gio and Naughton (at least thus far), they end up getting no first-team football at all. I find it ridiculous.

Jenas has been one of our best players over the last few weeks, so now certainly isn't the time to be writing him off (as much as I'd like to), but more to the point, I can see Harry doing absolutely everything possible to cling on to every member of the current squad, barring a disastrous season. And even if he doesn't, he'll probably just fill the squad up with more William Gallases and Joe Coles, meaning just as few opportunities for young players to come through. And if he doesn't do that, for the likes of Naughton and Gio, it seems like time's just about run out anyway (or at least it would if it weren't for the rumours that the club are waiting for Naughton to sign a new contract before shipping him out on loan to Portsmouth), because they haven't made the most of the few piffling opportunities they've been given during their several years at the club. Time's certainly run out for Taarabt and Boateng, who is apparently currently Milan's stand-out performer. But yeah, he probably wasn't good enough for us. And whatever happens to the squad, it's unlikely Harry's attitude towards reserve competition will change, so we'll still be relying on the flawed policy of using only the loan system to blood youngsters.

We need to stop thinking we've got a youth team of the calibre of Arsenal. I really don't think any of the young players that you mentioned are anywhere near good enough to make the first team. All of them were woeful in the Carling Cup tie last week. If anything, i wish Harry wouldn't keep playing certain Brits (ie Huddlestone) and instead bring in a more mobile hardworking technically gifted player to replace him. Playing Naughton in a massive game like tonight, when we're not exactly playing out of our skin, would have been suicide. Harry did the right thing playing Hutton. He was steady and put in a good shift. 7/10.

Anyway, we've just won our first game in the Champions League for fuck sake! Hooray! That was actually worth the ridiculous ticket price. Fantastic atmosphere and an entertaining game. Bassong was a colossus at the back. Modric and VDV look like they're going to link up brilliantly together. If Lennon and Palacios can remember how to play football again then our midfield is going to be pretty great. A good night.

People seem to watch him make one good long range pass every game and think that he's a great passer of the ball. He's really not. He has no ability to pick a pass when under pressure. Whatsoever. Watch how many good forward passes he makes on the deck. None. His party trick is the ball over the top. That's about it. Can't tackle either.

I'd say he probably scored about the same from a wide position. Probably got more assists too. Are you seriously going to compare the two? Do you think his movement off the ball is as good? His work rate? His link up play with players such as Bale?

In all competitions last season, Tom scored 4 goals in 43 matches; Luka scored 3 in 33. They have almost identical strike-rates. I can't find assist stats for Luka in all competitions, but they got 3 assists each in the league, in 33 and 25 appearances respectively (by extrapolation, Luka would have got just under 4 in 33).

They also play very different positions on the pitch: Tom Huddlestone is a DEEP-LYING playmaker. Like Carrick, Pirlo or Alonso. You've heard of them, right? I'll wait while you look up their scoring records. I wouldn't expect any of them to get many goals. (Incidentally, Xavi, who arguably also plays a similar role in the team to Huddlestone, up until the 2006-2007 season, when he was 26/27, had never scored more than 5 goals in a season. Just throwing that in there.)

Modric, on the other hand, is an ATTACKING midfielder. His 'wide position', when he plays in one, is almost entirely nominal. He has license to roam in-field, on to his right foot (which, I feel it is necessary to point out, is his stronger foot), where you'd expect him to put in the odd shot. He also has less defensive responsibilities than Huddlestone and, in theory, is able to get forward more, which you would expect to lead to more goals.

In conclusion, I think both players can up their contributions in terms of goals and assists, but I don't think either of them should be dropped.

If you honestly think that Huddlestone belongs in the same class as Pirlo, Xavi or Alonso then you're clearly a moron. But then you did ask the question, "Is it really a good thing that we have... King, Dawson, Bassong, Kaboul and Gallas ahead of Caulker?"
AMAZING
:D
I bet you've never even watched Caulker play have you? Go on admit it.

Actually this argument isn't really about football at all. I called him a cunt while back for being really aggresively rude to a couple of newcomers on the music board and he's still whining like a little bitch about it.

One of them is that fan's banners were not allowed into the stadium, which is categorically bullshit and makes me somewhat dubious of their other allegations. Spied a few scuffles between away fans in the stands, which seemed a bit odd too.

Literally minutes after a news story about JT doing something good, the News of the World runs an advert on how its next edition will have further details on the affair he's refused to talk about with the woman who has denied it ever happened. It's almost as if they saw the advert and thought 'Nah, not having that'.

Not an amazing game or a particularly great performance in all honesty, Valencia can certainly feel hard done by. Some of their delivery into the box was spectacular.

Good to see Anderson in a more advanced role, thought he had a good game. Carrick frustrated me as much as he normally does. Rafael had a good solid game, definitely needs to be played more often.

Hernandez took his goal fantastically well, great footwork and finish but a lot of credit has to go to Macheda, the vast majority of lads his age would have taken that on themselves. Really intelligent play.

The third, and arguably the most important given Twente's goal and Van Der Vaart's sending off, was questionable. Can't help but feel you deserve everything you get when you give away more than one penalty though. Proper schoolboy stuff.

in every sense. in a way it probably doesn't matter too much he'll miss the san siro game - don't really think we have much of a prayer either way.

the ref was a bit odd. 1st pen - goes your way at home. 2nd pen - blatant, 3rd pen harsh (but not the ref's decision). twente were petulant little shits before any of that though, not much sympathy for them.

I saw the game. Kick it to Bale. Cross it to Crouch. Nod it down to nobody. Somehow manage to win 4-1. Well done. Two totally ridiculous penalties. A clear cut one where the defender had a mental moment where he thought he was a rugby player when the ball was higher than a set of rugby posts, and a totally unfair "handball". In between one which was a totally unnecessary trip which was, like the first one, obviously a penalty.

I can see Spurs winning this group, seriously. But not by ever being any good. Twente were worse than Braga against Arsenal a couple of weeks back, and that's saying something. But I can just see Spurs doing something mental like beating Inter in Milan.